#&& Ashton Anchors

[larthrum]

dragon cuddles

[tatibana-tsuki]

2024描き初め　今年もよろしくお願いします

[dusk-bun]

Cuddle

I saw some very cute artworks of Ashton braiding Dias hair and wanted to join in with a colored sketch at least ;; 💕

[theoreticalconstruct]

Art I drew for an exchange. Ashton/Noel, SO2, because I love those two so much.

[eldarianduelist]

Plushies I wish were real

[kat-dezaraye]

Added Celine and Bowman to my Etsy store recently. I was hoping to have Opera, Precis, Dias, and Leon done in time for the SacAnime Convention, but, alas, they will have to come at a later time.

[anonfeather]

Because you can't rewatch the scenes in Star Ocean 2, I quickly grabbed my phone to record because I probably would want to watch it again, and I didn't find the Japanese dub of this ending...

(here's the English version I found on youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjX-2uzMrrA&list=PL9H9CjgxF8rjB-FmZGigfcbBDWe-LrAne&index=42 Thank you @Cat Painter )

Anyways, this is what made me start shipping them.. Below, my first fic of them

[danwhobrowses]

Prefacing that, again time zones, I've only been able to glean the latest CR episode and that I do not agree with their in-character opinions on the gods, I'd like to remind fans to try and not get super ugly about their criticism of Ashton Greymoore.

I'll be the first to throw my hands up and say they're among my favourite C3 characters so there may be bias, but I've been getting flashes of the Shard Incident from reactions towards their recent and vocal disdain for the gods. Disagree with them all you want, Taliesin knows that the gods can't simply leave since they're the one who said that the Wildmother would die if she left, but understand that it's a character flaw and if you recall the hardships of their backstory, the unanswered prayers, and that their only exchanges with the gods have required them to do something or, with the Dawnfather Angel, have been met with cold disregard, it's understandable how they got to feeling that way. Ashton has lived alone and been told they don't matter for a lot of their life; no gods, no family, no nurturing presence to guide them, they've been abandoned, used, and - with additional influence by the Dominox accusing them of wanting FCG to die - are currently between blaming themselves and the Changebringer for their closest friend's death.

Make no mistake Ashton is wrong, I think the self-confessed hypocrite with also self-confessed poor morality knows that deep down, or at least knows that they're not the kind of person who should be in charge. Vassalheim is a difficult place for a titan vessel to be in so it is unsure what they will do from here; perhaps investigate the Earth Titan? Commune with the Emperor and Empress? Or maybe be brought to the gods and be able to vent or reconcile with them (and maybe get some closure with FCG, speak with his spirit as like a mediator between the Hells and the Gods)? But it feels like Taliesin is being vocal for a reason, and it's either to invite Matt to challenge it (I've said in other comments but I would love if Ashton found some comfort, not worship or a pact but maybe just a dialogue, in the Everlight: a goddess of healing, temperance and redemption - all of which would help Ashton mentally - as unlikely as it'd be) or find another maybe primordial route to give Ashton a narrative tether towards stopping Predathos.

Let's just, not be cruel about the character, they are more than just their bad trauma and grief-led opinion on gods remember?

[kindahoping4forever]

When We Were Young Fest - 22 October 2023

📸: Yising Kao

[countlessrealities]

Unconventional first meetings

@muses-inn sent: [ MIXED ] : in a restaurant or cafe, both muses’ orders are swapped due to a mix up (Morty getting served the 3 cups of water that Ashton ordered for Creepy, Weepy and himself)

In spite of what he might say while he and Rick were going through a fight, Morty doesn't make it a habit to go on adventures on his own. At most, he heads back to the places where Rick's drunk rampages have created more trouble than favour and fixes them, so that they don't have yet another piece of the multiverse hunting them down, but those trips don't count as adventures in his book. Not really.

After all, as his grandfather would say, adventures, to be called such, need four things: conflict, stakes, a way for Rick to benefit from them and, clearly, the two of them as a duo. Even if he wouldn't admit it, to avoid being mocked, the boy is extremely fond of this definition.

So, him sitting in a tavern in a world that's a mixture between high fantasy and sci-fi counts, as most, as an interdimensional trek. Not that it could have been more than that. He knows too well what the scientist thinks of that sort of planets.

Morty's thoughts are abruptly interrupted as three cups of water are set down in front of him, instead of the slightly alcoholic local drink he has ordered. The teen stares at the for a long moment, eyes wide with confusion, and then whips his head up to inform the server of the mishap...just to find out that they have already walked away.

Oh geez, this is really awkward.

"...Uh..." He lets out, carefully looking around for a group who might have ordered the three cups of water.

Most of the patrons are alone or in pairs, so he has no luck until his eyes land on a guy who has two dragons' heads sprouting out of his back. Is that kind of thing normal around there?

Still, he seems to be the only one who counts as a "trio", so the teen gets up, balancing the three cups in his hands, and carries the drinks over to the man's table.

"H-Hey, sorry for bothering you, but...Uh, I-I think these were meant for you and your...friends?" Amber eyes skittishly glanced at the dragons. They don't seem particularly friendly or cheerful. "A-Anyway, here's your...water."

[mixed-up-multiverse]

@muses-inn sent: “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.“ (Ashton to Unico)

Beauty and the Beast starters | Not Accepting

He had gotten himself stuck in a trap while exploring this new place he'd woken up in, and his mind and memories hurt when he tried to think about how he could have possibly ended up here.

...And why he had felt the gentle breeze of the West Wind as he was just opening his eyes...

But while wandering to find out what this place was, he had been caught in a snare trap. It was a miracle that he was not dead (as the snares had only wrapped around his legs and body), but it was still very scary.

This humanoid stranger had noticed and offered to help, which Unico was grateful for, although the baby unicorn was understandably nervous. What if one wrong move would activate more snares?

“Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.“

Unico tried to calm himself down when the other spoke those words; despite his fears, he had a feeling that panicking would most likely worsen things more than the other doing something incorrectly. So he took a deep breath and tried to stop shaking to the best of his ability, in order to allow the other to properly set him free.

"O-Okay..." He kept one eye open to watch, anxiously hoping it wouldn't hurt.

[leafslash]

THERE is a peculiar scene playing out in one of the many trendy cafes of Cotes Ward this afternoon… Amidst a shop full of gawking patrons, one rather unusual man stands at odds with the cashier. It's unclear whether his fellow customers stare at him with the reason for the monstrously bizarre serpents jutting out of his back, or if they gaze with contempt for the disturbance he causes. But honestly, it very well could be both. ❝ Nonsense! We care little for this so-called 'Dust' you insist upon. Our proposal is a perfectly fair transition—this small confectionary should cost no more than a 100 Fol, generously speaking. A bounty carried out by us is worth one thousand fold. You would be foolish to refuse it. ❞ ❝ Sir, I'm a cashier… I don't need a hit on someone, I need to see your payment method or I'm going to have to ask you to leave. ❞ ❝ Payment method? ❞ Another worker behind the sweets displays pipes up cautiously. ❝ Look, Sir. You're disrupting our patrons. I'm calling security. ❞ ❝ Feh! Your half-hearted threats hold no weight against us. We will leave of our own accord, for clearly you lot are fools. ❞ The man turns with an air of arrogance, the creatures on his back warding away the displeased staff like a torch waved in their faces as they come in direct proximity with them. Very well… He'll take his leave. Though first, his eyes fall on a loudly dressed fellow sitting at a table, a cake laying delectably on a plate in front of him like a sitting duck. There's a moment of sizing up their opponent until he is ultimately branded an 'easy target'. Like stealing candy from a baby, the sweet is yoinked away from him by the dish. The man, delighted, only guffaws. ❝ Hah! But we said nothing of leaving empty-handed. ❞

❝ We're beyond the point of bartering. You have your fellow humans to thank. ❞ @schleckermaul — (wrestling emoji)

[shorthaltsjester]

chetney’s “i don’t understand what happened… i thought fearne was gonna take it? what happened?!?!”

imogen yelling “what did you do?!?” and casting telekinesis trying to hold ashton together as their body breaks beneath her magic. casting watery sphere and watching it turn to steam as she casts it. her mage hand futilely unbuckling the straps of the harness to get it away, to try and separate ashton from the choice he made without them.

fearne, making another agreement to watch someone she cares for die, another promise to do what’s right when the time comes. burning her hands on ashton’s body as she refuses to stop healing him, keeping up an aura to drag their dying body back to life over and over.

laudna staring on, helpless as she stands at the top of ziggurat haunted by the same woman who haunts her, watching ashton break into pieces.

fcg approaching to help and being seared with the heat emanating from ashton, desperately calling out to the changebringer to save ashton, getting no response.

orym looking on, a 19 perception check to tell him that ashton is dying before his eyes. seedling grasping out desperately to help in the only futile way that a fighter with no arcane nor divine ability can.

bell’s hells as this group of people who have had lives made up of choices that feel meaningless, that have been futile, that have left them ‘npcs’ in other people’s stories. and doing everything that shouldn’t work, that doesn’t work in an effort to save their friend ashton.

ashton, who laid broken on the ground because of their old friends who left them behind. ashton, breaking before the eyes of this new group of weirdos, of family. who survives because (of very lucky dice roles) imogen hears them in trouble and runs back up the zigguraut, and the rest of the party follows. because fcg and fearne will keep him anchored to this world even if only 70% of their body remains whole. ashton who shouldn’t have survived, who all the hells watched die and get shattered into pieces and then come back together.

very very excited to see where the hell this takes our group of self sacrificing weirdos

[your-reference-here]

Something something this bit of dialogue from the Delilah and Laudna conversation in the recent episode after Laudna ran away from the group to avoid hurting Ashton and giving in to Delilah's influence to take the fire crystal...

Laudna: "Ashton hurt Fearne. He hurt us."

Delilah: "Yes. People do that."

Laudna: "Why do you think that I would do the same?"

Delilah: "Because—"

Laudna: "If Ashton cannot learn from this lesson, then shouldn't others? Shouldn't I at least? I already hurt Imogen last time that a sparkly rock got in the way. Why didn't Ashton learn from that? Ashton could've learned from my mistakes."

Something something this bit of dialogue from the Imogen and Laudna confession/kiss back in Ep. 65 when Laudna was so scared of her actions when they were apart...

Laudna: "I don't know if you realize how much of an anchor you are for me. And when you weren't, when you weren't there, I was adrift. And Imogen, when— you make me better, and when you weren't there, I did horrible things. I'm afraid... I'm a bad person, Imogen."

Imogen: "You're not a bad person. You're not a bad person." *interrupting kiss* "I've heard everything inside of you, Laudna. You are not a bad person."

Something something Laudna proving Imogen's assertion through her words and actions even when her anchor isn't there.

[thisisnotthenerd]

not going to spoil anything outside the cut but the beacon membership is absolutely worth it if you're a 2x adhd girlie like me and want to get sleep before 2 am on thursday nights.

might go back tomorrow for a rewatch, but hell yeah. plus it streamlines combat indecision. the only thing i miss is the pre-stream music, but i can always tune into twitch for that and then start the ep when i want to. anyway:

great episode. i loved the hells needling at ludinus: the witches straight up poking holes in his ideas, orym going fuck you, ashton and dorian contemplating a new world order but still hating him, braius advocating for his deity, and chetney shooting through the door with questions about molaesmyr. every time he tried to sidestep a question from chet you know it's about some good shit.

also they run the gamut of kill the gods vs not: dorian in favor because of what he saw with the spider queen, ashton leaning into some primordial thought processes, braius hating the primes, chetney mostly concerned with the effects on exandria, laudna questioning ludinus' denied god complex, imogen considering their flaws as compared to mortals, fearne seeing their relationships, and orym neutral but considering the unknowns and the implications of making that choice for everyone on exandria.

ludinus giving them the arcane battery to deliberately trigger delilah. what the fuck matt. but also, excellent way to force a confrontation with her before more shit goes down.

it's a small moment, but ashton leaving a shard of fcg in aeor and saying welcome home.

the preservation of the soul anchor giving them the possibility to remove and bind delilah, we don't know what will happen to laudna if delilah is removed. i'm of the opinion that she could survive on her own sorcery because of the nature of the shadow sorcerer subclass, but is serving as a sort of phylactery for delilah, while she retains the pact. she's not in a place where i think she would take a different patron, so we'll see how it goes. i personally hope they can remove her, and then laudna gets a chance to be truly alone in her own mind for the first time in 30 years.

also, sam's back! braius has an interesting perspective that he's fully invested in; having that kind of commitment as an aspect of his character provides a good contrast against some of the vague aimlessness of the hells. it's good. it's fine. i'm sure this will all turn out great. the voice does remind me of tary.

[beedreamscape]

VERY LONG POST EXPLORING C3 AND WHY SO MANY PEOPLE MIGHT NOT LIKE IT/MY PERSONAL GRIPES WITH IT.

I ended up exploring a bit of that Reddit community of critical role fans (not the main one) where they basically gather together and commiserate how much they hate C3. It's frustrating to read because at some point you can tell they make no effort to engage positively with the campaign and have a penchant for hating anything about it.

But, from the perspective of someone with very little emotional connection to the past campaigns, I kinda get why C3 feels so different and, in my opinion, it's all about personal stakes for the characters.

As writers, we constantly hear that we must give the characters something personal to care about so that the reader may care about the plot - yeah city-destroying laser beam is a big stake, but if main character's loved one will be used as a sacrifice to the aliens to activate the laser beam unless they do something, the tension doubles.

And with a shallow look over the arcs of the past campaigns, especially the fans' favourites, a pattern I find is of those with heavy personal stakes:

People often point the Briarwoods arc as a favourite. It's not just about bringing down the powerful Briarwoods, it's about avenging Percy's family and bringing his beloved Whitestone back to its past glory, all mixed with the fighting of personal demons.

We also got Vax'ildans overarching arc with the Raven Queen and Scanlan's with Kaylie and his self-worth/discovery in the party.

In campaign three, the struggle of Fjord getting over Uk'otoa's influence and turning to the Wildmother, rediscovering himself. Bright Queen's Favor with freeing Yuza, uncovering Nott's past, grappling with their preconceptions of the empire and the dynasty, and meeting Essek. Losing then Recovering Yasha from Obann. Traveler Con.

This post about the first third of the C2 comparing it to C1 explains quite well how M9 is driven by the party's personal stakes over any obligation to any institution.

Not only personal stakes that build the value of the campaign, but places that grow as their own: Whitestone, Emon, Zephrah, Xhorhas, the Menagerie Coast, Zedash, etc.

That's what's missing from Campaign 3: anchors and personal stakes.

Bells Hells doesn't really care about anything! We're entrenched in the Ruidus plot ever since we learned what ruidusborn means in the beginning of the campaign and yet, what does that mean to them? It was the subject of Imogen's dreams and afflictions but what else? The main victims of it will be the gods, but they repeatedly state how much they don't care for the gods and are in doubt if losing them would be bad anyway.

In a certain perspective, I don't blame them - the plot has grown so massive and subjective, while they haven't - they're still level 10 nobodies against a god-eating moon-shaped monster and the insanely powerful guy that wants to free it.

Bells Hells doesn't care for the places they walk through! Only two members of the party are actually from Marquet! Imogen and Dorian. And both are running from their past! so they don't even want to be there! Ashton hates everything about it and all the others have no reason to cling to it.

Jrusar was such a great city with great dynamics that were only half explored and they don't seem to care to return to it even though so much goes unexplored. Yios meant nothing nor did Heartmoor or the Taloned Highlands (and its apparently juicy political intrigues nobody cared to explore) and barely a mention of Ank'harel or the Silken Squall.

WHY do we keep going back to Taldorei???

Marquet as a whole goes mostly unexplored and underused in the campaign and it's so upseting.

Bells Hells have nothing to lose! They hold no personal stakes to the plot, most of them don't have families and those that do feel like something so distant and impersonal, no place or city they love or feel connected to, the only thing they owned (the very valuable skyship rip) they destroyed with barely any consideration. Their morals feel like the only thing at stake and even that feels already lost.

C3 is pulling too much from past campaigns. From the moment they first contacted the VM people, it felt like a mistake, and every appearance since has felt so much like fan service (especially bc specific fan favourites are the recurring appearances, no variety). The time spent in Whitestone, the connections to Delilah, everything with Keyleth, etc.

This last one, in particular, contributes to that group of NPCs feeling, always revolving around some other character struggle - who cares what is going on with Bells Hells when Vax's trapped in an orb and Keyleth is half dying, and Caleb is in an anti-magic collar, and Trent is probably loose, and this character and that character...

We haven't spent proper time with C3-exclusive NPCs excluding Nana Morri since episode 50! No Lord Eshteross or Xandis or Ira or Jiana Hexum or the Green Seekers or Milo. It was so special to me having Dancer and Imahara Joe around even if briefly.

And Lord Eshteross death left such a huge gap in the dynamics of the party with the world. I think it was premature, especially because the thirst to avenge him (which I suppose was meant to fuel their hate and intention to kill Otohan) lasted so little and from there on out began the heavy and meta-gamey (and personally, OOC) relying on VM characters.

The ticking clock on the apogee solstice strained much of the campaign and brought this looming fear of 'if we don't take care of it nobody will so we can't waste time', therefore the alternative paths and personal arcs fell to the sidelines in favor of the elephant in the room, so it felt like several episodes of dragging towards this event, then the peak of ep 50-51, to re-start the drag of post moon beam.

Guest PCs are a whole other can of worms I'm not ready to explore also bc it entails a lot, but it's a shared sentiment that people miss Dorian and what he brought to the table.

On a personal view, the Hellcath Valley was my favorite arc. Bassuras felt so tactile and real and gritty, we had a clear objective of infiltrating the Paragon's Call and retrieving Armand Treshi, Deathwish Run, the mystery of Dusk unveiling into Yu, Fearne's parents encounter, Ira, Imahara Joe and reveals about Dancer and D., first FCG nervous attack, Otohan battle and Laudna's death. SO MUCH.

Special mentions to everything Jrusar and Shade Creepers, Heartmoor and the Museum, Savalirwood, and the time spent on the Silver Sun.

I miss these small-scale objectives, I miss the C3 NPCs, I miss Marquet, I miss turning our eyes to these character tensions and exploration, I miss the one-on-one talks, the unity they shared in those dire moments.

I can't wait to leave the Predathos plot and all the repetitive discussions within it behind.

This doesn't cover everything (interpersonal relationships are a whole other spectrum of discussion) but a few things I feel puts an obstacle towards people liking this campaign when comparing the past ones.